Why is Schembechler considered a "great coach"?

Bo was 1-9 against Ohio State?

 

Okay. Please list all the great coaches k thx bye

 

For accuracy: Bo was 2-8 in Rose Bowls, not 1-9. Just sayin'.

 

He's already proven that's the best he can do.

 

Jimmy Olsen -- the fat chick of SportsJournalists.com posters. I like it.

 

I believe that Bo was a very good coach. Perhaps the best never to win a national title? Is it out of line to ask if there is any other modern day coach, last 50 years or so, that would be considered great that did not win a national title? My mind is blank on this one now but I do find the question interesting.

 

Actually it was Woody Hayes... now go back undr the bridge where you belong

 

Here's part of what makes a good coach -- courtesy of Wojciecheski...

Schembechler liked basketball more than you realize. One of his best friends was Bob Knight. The friendship shouldn't surprise anybody. They were cut from the same old-school cloth.

Rick Majerus
Getty Images
Rick Majerus received several calls of encouragement from Schembechler.

Today, Knight grieves for his friend. So does Rick Majerus, who, through a six-degrees-of-separation experience, learned firsthand of the kindness Schembechler would happily offer to people he barely knew.

In 1989, about 8½ months after Michigan had won the NCAA Tournament, the then-University of Utah coach began experiencing shortness of breath while jogging. Tests were done. Majerus needed septuple coronary bypass surgery. He was 40 years old, the same age Schembechler was when he suffered his first heart attack.

Majerus had remembered that Schembechler had undergone quadruple heart bypass surgery in 1987. So he called Knight, whom he knew well, and asked whether he could have Schembechler's phone number.

"Stay where you are," said Knight, who had stopped his staff meeting so he could help Majerus. "I'll have him call you back in an hour."

Fifty-nine minutes later, Majerus' phone rang. It was Bo.

Majerus had met Schembechler several years earlier while Majerus was still coaching at Ball State. But it had been a brief encounter.

"I don't know if you remember me," Majerus began.

Of course, he remembered him, Schembechler said. And for about the next 45 minutes he walked Majerus through the heart procedure and calmed his nerves. Majerus took notes the whole time.

"He was very straightforward and direct," said Majerus on Friday, as he waited to board a plane from Las Vegas to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational. "You could tell he paid attention to detail and was extremely organized."

Schembechler told him there would be, oddly enough, more leg pain than chest pain after the surgery. He told him not to coach that season, no matter how well he felt in the months after the procedure. He told him his post-op exercise routine should include as much walking as possible.

"I listened to everything he said," Majerus said. "Other than my doctor, it was the most informative and thorough talk that I'd gotten."

Three days later, they cracked open Majerus' sternum. The operation was a success. Majerus didn't coach that season, and just as Schembechler had predicted, it was the right decision.

But Majerus did later run in a marathon for charity in San Antonio. It took him a while, but he walked and jogged his way to the finish line. Not long after the marathon, an envelope with the University of Michigan logo arrived at his Utah office.

Looks like your doctor did a good job. But when I said walk, I didn't mean 26 miles.

It was signed, Bo

 

Considering how many two-game seasons Michigan had, yes, I do think that not having won it all is a big demerit.

 

Demerit against being named Greatest Coach Of All Time? Sure. But to not call him a great coach with a near-.800 winning percentage and 10 Rose Bowl appearances because he didn't win a national title means you're going to have an awfully short list of "great" coaches -- assuming you eliminate Bobby Ross and LaVell Edwards and the one-hit wonder types.

 

Maybe that's right.

 

So then I'll pose to you the question I posed to Jimmy Olsen Sings The Troll's Blues: list the great coaches in college football history.